Abandoned Towns
One of Thistle's surviving houses, its roof sagging, half hidden in brush below a steep canyon slope, April 2008

Railroad and road town · Farm and ranch town

Thistle

A railroad town at the foot of Soldier Summit that a landslide dammed and flooded in April 1983. Federal and state agencies call it the costliest landslide in US history. A few structures survived the water; we could not confirm what still stands.

39°59′29″N 111°29′54″W · ≈5,070 ft

Photo: Drewe Zanki, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Ruins · view from the road

The newest dated record we found of what stands at Thistle is a photo of a surviving house taken in April 2008, with views from the highway view area in June 2010. Wikipedia says the remains "are visible from a view area along US‑89" and that UDOT "maintains a view area overlooking the townsite." Atlas Obscura's community listing, first published in 2011 and edited since without dates, marks the place "no longer accessible to visitors," says "Thistle is located on private property, and is best viewed from a distance," and reports that the 2018 fire destroyed "many of the remaining structures." It adds that a couple of submerged houses can still be seen directly along US 6/89. Look from the road.

Overview

The town under the lake

Thistle sits where Thistle Creek and Soldier Creek meet to form the Spanish Fork River, about 65 miles southeast of Salt Lake City. Mormon settlers ranched here from 1848, but the town grew with the railroad. The Denver and Rio Grande Western added helper engines to eastbound trains here for the climb to Soldier Summit, fed passengers before dining cars, and ran its Marysvale Branch south up Thistle Creek. Around 1917 about 600 people lived here.

Diesel engines ended the need for most of that in the 1950s. The depot came down in 1972 and the post office closed in 1974, and by 1983 only a few families remained. That spring, after a record wet winter, the hillside below town began to move. Between April 14 and 17 it buried the tracks and the highway and dammed the river. Residents were evacuated to Birdseye, some with less than two hours' notice, and the rising lake reached the rooftops of the town's 22 occupied houses by April 18.

The lake grew to three miles long and over 200 feet deep before tunnels drained it. Most wooden buildings floated away. The slide cost an estimated $200 million directly, with some estimates of the total as high as $400 million, and the railroad, US 6 and US 89 were rebuilt higher up the canyon wall. The Marysvale Branch was never rebuilt. In 2018 the Coal Hollow Fire swept the canyon.

Timeline

From helper station to landslide lake

Thistle in Spanish Fork Canyon on a C. R. Savage photo captioned for the Rio Grande Western, so taken between 1889 and Savage's death in 1909
Thistle in Spanish Fork Canyon on a C. R. Savage photo captioned for the Rio Grande Western, so taken between 1889 and Savage's death in 1909 · Photo: Charles Roscoe Savage, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
The landslide lake from the air in 1983, with the cut for the new US 6 at left. USGS photo by R. L. Schuster
The landslide lake from the air in 1983, with the cut for the new US 6 at left. USGS photo by R. L. Schuster · Photo: R.L. Schuster, U.S. Geological Survey, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
  1. The Pace family, Mormon settlers from Nauvoo, Illinois, reach the confluence of Thistle Creek and Soldier Creek. Their descendants ranch here until 1983.
  2. The Utah and Pleasant Valley Railway lays a narrow-gauge line through Thistle to coal mines near today's Scofield Reservoir.
  3. The Denver and Rio Grande Western buys the line at a foreclosure sale and rebuilds it to standard gauge, part of its Salt Lake City–Denver route.
  4. Thistle peaks at about 600 people, with a five-stall roundhouse, depot, machine shop, stores, a saloon and a two-story schoolhouse built in 1911.
  5. The railroad replaces steam engines with diesels, and Thistle fades.
  6. The passenger depot is torn down in 1972 and the post office closes in 1974.
  7. A landslide below town closes US 6, US 89 and the railroad, then buries the tracks. A voluntary evacuation order follows.
  8. The slide dams the Spanish Fork River. The evacuation becomes mandatory, and by the 18th the water reaches the rooftops of the 22 occupied houses.
  9. Ronald Reagan declares Utah's first presidential disaster area. The railroad reopens through a new tunnel on July 4, and the rebuilt highway on December 30.
  10. Lightning starts the Coal Hollow Fire in Spanish Fork Canyon. It burns more than 30,000 acres.

What's left

What may remain

The red sandstone arch of the ruined schoolhouse, September 2006
The red sandstone arch of the ruined schoolhouse, September 2006 · Photo: Jenny Bauman, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
A surviving house in the brush, April 2008
A surviving house in the brush, April 2008 · Photo: Drewe Zanki, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Wikipedia says only a few structures were left partly standing after the flood, and its photos show the ruined schoolhouse in 2006 and a surviving house in 2008. Atlas Obscura's listing names a red schoolhouse, a house half sunk in a bog and the old train machine shop, notes that a house on a hill has been demolished, then adds that the 2018 fire destroyed many of the remaining structures. Neither gives a dated survey of what stands today, so treat any list as out of date.

The old maps below show the town before the slide. The 1885 survey marks Thistle where Thistle Creek meets Soldier Fork, on the Denver and Rio Grande line. The 1967 sheet shows a long row of buildings between the D&RGW tracks, Thistle Creek and the old highway, with the Thistle Substation to the northeast. The 1981 sheet marks the town at the junction of US 6 and US 89.

  • Remnants of the 1911 schoolhouse (reported)
  • A few house ruins (reported)
  • Landslide dam and drained lake bed
  • Abandoned highway and railroad grades
USGS topographic map of Thistle where Thistle Creek and Soldier Creek join the Spanish Fork
USGS The National Map, topo. Thistle beside US 89 and Thistle Creek, just south of the Soldier Creek and Spanish Fork junction.
Aerial view of US 89 curving through a narrow valley past a small pond, with the highway junction at the top
Aerial imagery, same area. US 89 curves down the valley floor past a small pond toward the junction with US 6 at the top.

Seeing it

The view area on US 6

Spanish Fork Canyon from the Thistle view area, June 2010
Spanish Fork Canyon from the Thistle view area, June 2010 · Photo: Moabdave, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
The landslide scar seen from the US 6 rest area, June 2010
The landslide scar seen from the US 6 rest area, June 2010 · Photo: Moabdave, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

The Utah Department of Transportation maintains a view area overlooking the townsite along US 6 and US 89, Wikipedia says. Atlas Obscura's directions put a large pullout about 12.7 miles from I-15, just before a massive double road cut, with US 89 turning off about 1.5 miles farther on. Passengers on the California Zephyr also see the site from the train. We have not been able to confirm the pullout's current state.

Historic maps

Thistle on USGS maps, 1885–1981

Crops from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, centered on the townsite. Each sheet shows what surveyors mapped that year; compare them with today's topo and aerial on this page.

USGS topographic map around Thistle, 1885
Manti sheet, 1885, 1:250,000 · U.S. Geological Survey, public domain · catalog record

Map & directions

Getting there

Spanish Fork is the nearest city. Take US 6 east up Spanish Fork Canyon, then the ramp onto US 89 south, which drops to the townsite. From Salt Lake City, follow I-15 south to exit 257 at Spanish Fork and join US 6.

USGS topographic map of Spanish Fork Canyon from Spanish Fork to Thistle with the route drawn on it

Base map: USGS The National Map (public domain). Routes: OSRM on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), computed October 2026. Times assume dry roads.

From downtown Spanish Fork16.0 miabout 22 min
  1. Head east on 400 North, SR 147, through three roundabouts.1.4 mi
  2. Turn right onto 1430 East.0.4 mi
  3. Turn left onto US 6 east, the Mike Dmitrich Highway, up Spanish Fork Canyon.12.3 mi
  4. Take the ramp to US 89, turn right at the end and follow US 89 south to the townsite.1.9 mi
Google Maps directionsApple MapsOpenStreetMap

Road and safety notes

  • The townsite is reported to be private property, and Atlas Obscura marks it closed to visitors. Look from the road or the view area and don't cross fences.
  • The canyon is prone to landslides; Wikipedia notes a smaller slide in 1998.

Photos

Photos

Visitor reports

Been to Thistle?

Been there lately? Tell the next visitor what you found: whether you could get in, the state of the road and what's still standing. Photos are welcome. We read every report before it appears here.

Railroad and road

More railroad, road and fort ghost towns

The nearest in Utah, then the nearest elsewhere.

Collapsed wooden cabins, a graffiti-covered trailer and scattered buildings at Cisco on a flat desert plain under summer clouds, seen from the trainGuide

Cisco

38.97, -109.32

Grand County, Utah

A water stop for steam trains that grew into a small supply town, then faded when diesel and I-70 left it behind. Collapsed cabins and old cars…

Two residents · 2026 reportRailroad and road
Three beehive-shaped stone charcoal kilns and the broken shell of a fourth behind a fence at Piedmont, September 2020Guide

Piedmont

41.22, -110.63

Uinta County, Wyoming

A railroad tie camp and helper-engine stop on the first Union Pacific line, left behind when the Aspen Tunnel moved the tracks. Three of Moses…

Kilns: state historic siteRailroad and road

All 120 railroad, road and fort ghost towns →

Nearby

Other sites near Thistle

Straight-line distance from the townsite to other mapped sites in our Utah index.

Sources

Sources and credits

  1. ghosttowns.com, "Thistle": fact sheet fields (roads, climate, best time). It lists Wasatch County; we follow Wikipedia and GNIS, which place Thistle in Utah County.
  2. Wikipedia, "Thistle, Utah", read in October 2026: settlement, railroads, population and census figures, decline, the 1983 landslide, evacuation, costs, rebuilding, UDOT view area, the 2018 Coal Hollow Fire, the 1998 slide, coordinates.
  3. Atlas Obscura, "Thistle Ghost Town", community listing first published July 15, 2011, read October 19, 2026: the "no longer accessible to visitors" marker, remaining and demolished structures, the 2018 fire, private property, submerged houses visible from US 6/89, the pullout directions.
  4. Drewe Zanki, "Buried house, Thistle, Utah", Wikimedia Commons, taken April 12, 2008: one of the few surviving buildings, the newest dated record of what stands.
  5. Coordinates: Wikipedia (from USGS GNIS). Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026. Not field-checked.

Photo and map credits

Record6 of 9
  • Coordinates
  • Railroad history
  • 1983 landslide
  • Historic maps, 1885–1981
  • Route from Spanish Fork
  • Photos, 1889–2010
  • What stands after the 2018 fire
  • Land ownership, dated
  • View area condition
Missing items are what we'll ask readers and local sources to fill.